Kennett business gets big Toys for Tots donation

Kennett area dentist Jeffrey Hendrix, third from the right in the back row, is joined by members of his staff and some smiling clients in showing off the generous donation of toys that arrived in his office Monday morning. The toys came from members of the nearby Red Bridge Farm community for the office’s annual Toys for Toys drive.
Staff photo by Wm. Shawn Weigel

There were so many toys, in fact, that the three-foot-high cardboard Toys for Tots bin in the lobby couldn’t hold them; the over was stashed in an empty utility room.

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The client, Rod Carson, of West Chester, said he’d collected the toys in his Red Bridge Farm neighborhood as part of their own annual toy and gift drive.

“For whatever reason, they dropped off all of their gifts here,” Hendrix said. “I guess everyone in town knows that we’re always doing something for the community.”

Carson said he first organized the drive in his neighborhood four years ago, and has averaged about 100 toys per year since then.

“I just thought it was a great opportunity to leverage all of these neighbors we have here,” Carson said. “This neighborhood is very giving and very generous, and that’s why I do this every year.”

Carson said that the gifts are usually dropped off at different locations each year. When he saw the drop off box at Hendrix’s, he asked if it would be alright to bring them there.

“They gave me a late pick-up date, and that worked out great for me,” he said.

Hendrix, whose office participates in a variety of outreach programs, said the offering was unsolicited and came straight from the heart.

“Nowhere did we expect to have a gentleman come through the door, on a rainy Monday, with all these gifts,” he said. “We might entice our patients a little, but this was just a good old act of kindness.”

He added that the donation made several members of his staff take a moment to reflect on such a generous move in a poor economy.

“Here is an act of kindness that will re-instill hope in fellow humankind,” he said. “It’s few and far between where you have happy stories like this during the holidays.”

Carson reiterated that the donation was just a reflection of the generosity of the Red Bridge Farm community.